Rick Moran at PJ Tatler — “Sheppard’s nose for news and his ability to distill the essence of a story into a few well written paragraphs that were enlightening as well as thought provoking is a rare combination.”

Stacy McCain — “Noel was one of the guys who became a reliable fixture in the blogosphere when it was a new force …”

Ann Coulter — “Heartbroken over Noel Sheppard, the magnificent. I can say no more right now.”

Joseph Curl — “Through everything, he never lost his sense of humor. He will be sorely missed.”

Sarah Palin — “Our prayers are with Noel Sheppard’s family. He was a fighter for truth who will be greatly missed!”

Two weeks ago, Nicholas Riccardi at the Associated Press basically gave an open mic to immigration amnesty groups who pretend to believe that the Obama administration has been deporting more immigrants who are here illegally per year than previous administrations did. Some of the groups involved are moving to disruptive tactics which look more like attempts at mob rule than those employed in a civil society.

Today, several center-right news outlets and blogs are reporting that the Center for Immigration Studies has reviewed information recently released by Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement arm. Unsurprisingly, CIS has found far more laxness in deportation efforts. But what may surprise many, and what should be reported by AP and other establishment press outlets if they have any consistency and integrity, is how nonchalant the administration has been in releasing hardened criminals onto America’s streets. Stephen Dinan at the Washington Times appears to have been the first to report on situation on Sunday:

Over at Hot Air, Dustin Siggins writes that Andrea and Colin Chisholm “are getting enormous media attention.” Perhaps, and I really hope so. Unfortunately, I found no evidence of any level of attention to the Chisholms, the apparently very rich couple who allegedly engaged in protracted fraud against the welfare systems of Florida and Minnesota for seven years, at several national establishment press outlets.

Here are some of the infuriating details from ABC’s weekend “Good Morning America” show, a rare establishment press exception (bolds are mine):

The Associated Press has a breaking news update: If you want to apply for Obamacare at HealthCare.gov today and you’ve never set up an account, forget about doing so for the time being.

The update is is running under this morning’s old headline (“HEALTH CARE WEBSITE STUMBLES ON LAST DAY”), begging the question as to when a “stumble” turns into “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up” (HT to several tweeters):

The Obamacare-loving press spares no effort in excusing and minimizing the scheme’s operational, systemic, and law-based failures.

Six months after launch, HealthCare.gov still isn’t functioning as intended. In fact, as of 8:47 a.m. this morning, the time stamp on an Associated Press report (also saved here for future reference, fair use and discussion purposes) by chief wire service Obamacare defender Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, the web site wasn’t functioning at all. Did the AP reporter tell readers the system had crashed, or was down? Oh heck no (bolds are mine):

You might sit on the sidelines of life. Pat Knisely believes you don’t have to stay there.

“Look at me. Look at me!” she whispers, consoling a crying child. The 4-year-old shivers by the side of a swimming pool, crouching in the darkness of his mind.

His swimming teacher plops a towel on her head, sparking a fleeting smile from the frightened boy. “Now remember,” Knisely says, “I’m old and —

The boy grins. “Tired.”

“That’s right. So you have to take it easy on me!”

All the kids at the side of the pool, waiting for their lesson, begin to giggle, including the tearful little boy. “Come on. Jump in!” Pat says. The childhood storm has passed.

In a city surrounded by sea, Knisely wants every child to learn how to swim. She has taught thousands of kids in New Bern, N.C.

Lindsay Sobel still remembers the “Ms. Pat” look that got her into the pool. The 26-year-old tugs her glasses down and frowns over the top of the lenses. “She looked like this,” she laughs, recalling when she was a stubborn 7-year-old.

“You don’t have to be a winner,” Lindsay’s mom, Joan Sobel, tells me. “You just have to learn to swim right.”

Lindsay did better than all right, even though she has Down syndrome. “This one’s my favorite,” she says, pulling a gold medal off her wall to show me. She has won 78 state and national championships.

“I’m good!” Lindsay says simply. Good because Knisely listens closely to children like Lindsay, who are often overlooked.

“She never took one of them to the side,” Kristen Wall confides. “Never said, ‘Oh, you’re different. You’re going to have your own private lesson.’”

Wall, a biologist, now trains with dolphins. She learned to swim with Lindsay. Neither was treated like fragile glass.

Knisley knows the pain of a life turned inward. Multiple sclerosis put her in a wheelchair 20 years ago.

“I can’t imagine living my life with out MS,” she says. “You learn a lot about who you are.”

Like most winners, Pat Knisely doesn’t give up, but how she handles loss is perhaps her finest lesson. In 2012, her husband, Jim, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. The boy she met at 16 and married at 18 was given just a few months to live. …

Pushed back from the headlines, massive protests against the repressive Nicolas Maduro regime in Venezuela continue.

So do the killings by the “colectivos.” If this group of thugs enforcing Maduoro’s Chavista socialist nightmare were instead right-wing paramilitary types, they would long since have been christened “death squads” and garnered international attention. A story about the colectivos finally appeared in the Associated Press today. While the coverage by Fabiola Sanchez and Frank Bajak was mostly measured, it completely ignored the fact the colectivos can operate without fear of armed resistance because of government curbs on purchases, transfers and public carrying of guns.

One (among many) of the more stunning elements of Obamacare’s six-month run thus far has been the administration’s increasingly desperate ploys to get “millennials” to sign up as the sort-of enrollment deadline looms. One of the more appalling of those involved President Obama himself appearing on comedian Zach Galifianakis’ “Between Two Ferns” show and directing scripted insults at the host. Almost no one in the establishment press has commented on how stunts such as these diminish the dignity which used to be associated with the highest office in the land.

Building on that personal involvement, Saturday Night Live’s opening skit last night showed several other made-up (I hope) attempts to make “Get Covered” go viral, including presidential photo ops with Kim Kardashian and the Pope. The final effort possibly included spreading viruses, as it required Obama to kiss Justin Bieber … on the lips. Video of that skit (obvious warning to those who don’t would rather not see the final act: stop the tape) follows the jump (HT the Blaze):

The headline and first paragraph at an Associated Press item on a union strike authorization vote in Las Vegas are both far more vague than they could or should be.

Though the rest of Ken Ritter’s coverage at least identifies the union involved, it completely fails to get to the heart of the matter, which is that Obamacare is causing huge increases in their employers’ cost of providing health care coverage. Culinary Union Local 226 wants their casino company employers to, well, eat those costs, and the companies are resisting. Ritter’s coverage, which to those who understand the full background reads like an exercise in stall-ball, never even specifically says that health benefits are this potential strike’s key issue (bolds are mine throughout this post):

Three years after a critical bone marrow transplant, Katie Waggoner finally met the man who saved her life Monday.

At age 28, the Arlington native was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia, an aggressive cancer typically found in children. She was told she couldn’t leave the hospital and started chemotherapy that day, in October 2010.

“Pretty quickly you have to make the decision to live or die,” she said. “I made the decision to live.”

Her only option was a bone marrow transplant, and when her sister wasn’t a match, they turned to a transplant registry and found a match — 5,000 miles away in Germany. She received her transplant at Baylor University Medical Center in March 2011.

On Monday, Waggoner and her children, 7-year-old Ryan and 8-year-old Rachel, met her match at the Dallas hospital: German paramedic Thomas Wuenshe.

“I’m just overwhelmed with joy to have this opportunity to meet him,” said Waggoner, who now lives in Austin.

The meeting was arranged after Waggoner’s cousin Amy Smith submitted her story to Kidd Kraddick in the Morning’s “I Have a Dream” special. The show flew him in from Germany. …

Although its report has its shortcomings, particularly the fact that it didn’t identify him as a Democrat for 24 paragraphs (as noted this morning), the Associated Press has at least treated California State Senator Leland Yee’s arrest on corruption and gun trafficking charges as a national story, with two bylined reporters and seven others assisting.

The same cannot be said of CNN.com. Web searchers, including several center-right bloggers, have noted the absence of any story about Yee there since 2011 (still true as of 6:30 p.m.). A tweet from “CNN.com Writers” snippily snapped back with a howler disproved faster than you can say “covering Democrats’ keisters”:

Brickbats to Phillip Rawls and his layers of editors at the Associated Press.

Vietnam war hero and former Alabama Senator Jeremiah Denton died on Friday. He was an incredibly courageous and inspiring man who after his return from 7-1/2 years as a POW in North Vietnam became deeply troubled at where this nation was (and still is) headed. Unsurprisingly, he became a strong pro-life and family values advocate. Apparently following an unwritten rule at AP which dictates that a writer must take at least one parting shot at a conservative upon his or her death (see: Tony Snow), Rawls took two, twice describing Denton as “rigid” (includes video of a portion of his 1966 “torture” interview; bolds are mine):

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